Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @07:48PM
from the you-got-99-problems-but-a-glitch-aint-one dept.

Aspiritech, a Chicago based non-profit company, has launched a program to train high-functioning autistic people as testers for software development companies. The company says autistics have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work. Aspiritech is not the first company to explore the idea of treating this handicap as a resource. Specialisterne, a Danish company founded in 2004, also trains autistics. They hire their workforce out as hourly consultants to do data entry, assembly line jobs and work that many would find tedious and repetitive.

I would think the future, at least the future of computer programming, relies much more on communication skills than rigorous attention to detail. As languages become higher level and more extensible, it is much more important to write code and doc that others can read and understand.

Yes... and no.

The code and doc that others can read and understand, yes, that is tremendously important, and will always be neglected in Dilbert's (and our) world of rushed deadlines, short staffing, and lazy coworkers. If it works, ship it yesterday, oh, and after it's shipped, why isn't the next thing finished yet?

Accurate code and doc requires tremendous attention to detail, if you're talking about API level, you need docs that say what the functions and their parameters do, and functions that properly implement that. Rigorous attention to detail is just the beginning - extensive testing, documentation of big picture connections to related parts of the API, and keeping up with the "cutting edge" of efficiency, feature completeness, etc.

Most of my coworkers don't have the attention span to complete anything significant at this level of rigor, and the ones who do are pushed by management to "be more productive" rather than make something that actually works 100% correctly.

I have a degree in EE, and write code daily. You are right about me not writing large programs though. Generally I write small, simple programs, and then reuse components to make larger more complex apps. The people I work with do the same, and it's great to have a well documented, simple libraries to pick and choose from. The skills I see that provide this type of codebase are good organization and communication skills.

As time goes on, and proper development libraries become larger, hopefully there

That's like saying "people who work in IT reside on the intelligence spectrum". Sure, there is a wide range of intellectual abilities, but there is a very clear difference from "not good at math" and "crippling mental retardation".

Autism is defined as a DISORDER, not a spectrum. Take the convenient wiki definition of "a disorder of neural development that is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior."

Neither of your examples remotely resembles autism. Both are textbook examples of masters of social interaction and communication, which is of course the most important trait for someone of their business and marketing ability. I really don't think you understand what Autism is, and it doesn't really help to trivialize it like you are.

Seriously, these guys shouldn't be jumping on a psychological disorder and claiming everyone has it. What they're looking for is the theory of multiple intelligences. A psychological disorder by definition has a significant impact on your everyday functioning, normally to the point where you can't work or go to school as a normal person. But what else do you expect from a guy who performs mental health diagnosis on celebrities?

Autism is a disorder, that is true. However, there are various degrees of autism, such as Asperger syndrome, so people usually use Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism-aspergers/ [www.nhs.uk]) to account for this.

I don't really know that I believe that. I mean no offense to those techies who do have actual psychological problems that they battle each and every day with what I say here. These problems do exist and can make life harder.

In my experience, younger techies seem to have this idea that they are really quirky or have some mental problem. It's almost a techie way of proving how cool you are. Heck, I'll even admit acted a little foolish in my early IT days to the point where I believed that I was all quirky and crazy.

As I got older I realized that I just have some slightly different preference. I don't sleep as much as most people I know, I like to stay up later and don't like to get up early, and I like to learn new things (not a very common trait in America these days, sadly).

A few Years ago I worked with two developers who were clearly OCD and had been diagnosed as such. They were the truly quirky ones...the guys walking around their cars every morning to check five times if their windows were up and doors were locked, washing their hands until the skin was raw...doing other truly bizarre things all the time. Seeing people who had actual psychological issues that they had to deal with daily made me think of some of my co workers who had declared themselves the "Craziest" or "Pretty OCD" or "Waaaay ADD" and I realized they rarely exhibited any symptoms and when they did so, it was when it seemed convienient to them...such as "It is really hard for me to get to work on time because of my OCD and ADD".

Perhaps the desire to be different or have people think you are stranger than you really are is a type of disease in itself but it seems more of a Prima Donna/Pay attention to me thing in many Techies.

There seems to be a stereotype that quirky people are intelligent and I feel that many people leverage that stereotype to compensate for their own shortcomings (and for attention). After all, it is very advantageous to do so. Making your shortcomings "official" makes it easier for others to believe and overlook those shortcomings; however, it makes light of people who suffer from those real disorders. I believe this stereotype stems from associating perfectionism with OCD and being bored with ADD. While many intelligent people do get bored fast and may be perfectionists -- the very definitions of OCD and ADD are almost the opposite of having high fluid intelligence, which is a bit ironic.

In real life, personality is NOT a very good indicator of fluid intelligence since personality is mostly a function of crystallized intelligence (which can be confounding). It has been my experience that really gifted individuals that are "quirky" do everything they possibly can to hide their quirks from other people. Their "quirky" side is only revealed in their lifestyle when you really get to know the individual and they let their guard down. They also happen to be very affluent and social. In the end, this "quirky" trend is all so Shakespearian to me. The stigma of a genius is often associated with some fatal flaw. How annoying.

I know many will say this is reprehensible, but I honestly think this is something respectable for individuals suffering from autism to do. Honestly, besides grocery store jobs, I have never seen other types of companies hiring these individuals. Of course there are others, but I haven't seen any.

I completely agree, and don't see why it would be reprehensible. It's simply matching people to work that suits them. Just like how, due to my personality and skill set, engineering is a more suitable job for me than say pole dancing or drain laying, their personality/skill sets make them more suited to certain jobs over others.

One of the worst things you can do to people is pidgeon hole them into a job based on a prevelent sterotype. For example, Temple Grandin [wikipedia.org] has made a fourtune "thinking like a cow". I find it impossible to describe her work as predictable or monotonous.

Only if the individual doesn't actually fit the stereotype. Surely they aren't stating "You're autistic, therefore you should have this job"; rather, they'd be saying "Many people with autism excel at this kind of job, perhaps we should look among them for a suitable employee". Stereotypes don't describe everyone, but they do have their uses.

I am not arguing against this program I was mearly responding to the OP who's post appeared to be stereotyping austistic people.

Why is the internet is full of people like you who whenever someone make a trite quip they immediately take it to the extreme? Do you do this in real life conversations? If a stranger pushes the wrong button in the elevator do you jump down their throat and accuse them of wanting to hijack a plane?

Here's a free tip for you that will make you life a lot less consfusing and eve

It's completely predictable to her. Just not to most people. She's simply doing what makes her happy... why should other people not have the opportunity to do the same? I mean... everything is just a label. If you call someone a singer, do you think that they might enjoy work singing rather than, say, replacing toilets? They have a skill and a drive a lot of people don't. Same thing with autism... it's a difference in thinking and skills. Why do you insist on thinking that autism is simply a handicap, rathe

Not nearly as reprehensible as I find every idiot geek out there (many of them, sadly to say, on Slashdot) that seem to have some perverse need to revel in calling themselves autistic -- or at the very least "oh, I like star trek and collecting shit, so I have fucking aspergers". Ever since that "report" came out a few years ago, every single fucktard on the planet has started going around clinging to that like some crazy fucking Munchhausen crazed mother.

Why is this modded as troll? It's actually quite truthful. I was diagnosed with aspergers as a teen. This was after my parents kicked me off home when I was 11 years old and per government requirements, I had to go to a different school (which was mostly so that the people there could diagnose me). Later I was moved to normal school, with "aspergers syndrome" stamped on me as a result.

Later I read about it and most of the things just doesn't fit.

Whenever psychologists and other "experts" describe Asperger's, I recognise absolutely nothing about it. But when someone who has it describes it, I recognise everything. Best description I ever heard was in social situations feeling like an anthropologist on Mars. You know what's going on, you can analyse and understand it, but you're not really part of it. You don't have an intuitive feel for it like others do. That's me. I recognise that completely. Social situations are hard work for me (or I just ignore them). But other than that, I have no problem functioning normally.

But as soon as a psychologist opens his mouth about Asperger's, it turns into some disability that other people have.

You know what's going on, you can analyse and understand it, but you're not really part of it. You don't have an intuitive feel for it like others do.

Bleh, I wish. Analyzing and understanding both require observing something to begin with, took me years just to get that part sorted out.

Don't get me wrong, it took me ages to figure that out too. Worked hard at it. And now I understand enough of it to know what I'm missing.

(Honey, when you say "it's ok", does that mean you're not gonna be pissed off when I spend half the night playing games? No, not really? Ok, so why didn't you just fucking say so in the first place? Cue more passive-aggressive relationship stuff...)

I've always been really clear about this: when you need something from me, ask me directly, or I won't notice. If you ask me if those pants make you fat, I'll probably answer that most likely it was the food. It works. We're both sufficiently aware of this and find it occasionally very funny. And I have a great wife. That also helps.

A company is in business to make money. They'll in no way spend money unless it'll make more money than the alternatives. There is an ulterior motive here, and it's the hope that the people with autism will be so absorbed with their jobs they won't realize they're getting minimum wage or may not care because now they have a job they can do well. They'll do a damn fine job at it, most likely, and they'll run off all the riff-raff (shitty testers who are just there to pirate the software and/

Well, hang on. Epsilons were bred to be epsilons, which was meant to be, and is, morally reprehensible.

People with autism exist already. Why shouldn't they have better jobs than sacking groceries? And why shouldn't those jobs be in line with their special abilities? The Politically Correct teach us to be "differently abled". If that's really true, then how could jobs in line with those special abilities be bad?

Besides that, if they can handle what the rest of us consider really monotonous stuff well (which a lot of autistic people can), that leaves less of it for those of us who get bored silly by it.

In other words, it's not just putting autistic folks in a place where they can do a good job. It's actually putting them in a place where they can do a better job than the rest of us, so long as their manager gets training on how to deal with their quirks, and they're kept far away from customers.

That is because mental retardation was an umbrella diagnosis that didn't convey any useful information. Most people with any kind of mental disability were given that diagnosis. As we learned more about these kinds of disabilities, we began specifying different kinds of mental problems.
It's like the difference between calling a person educated and calling them a physicist.

Exactly my point. There probably aren't more actual cases of autism -- we just got better at identifying them as autism. (Now I feel like I overestimated the intelligence of the Slashdot crowd, assuming they'd all get the inference, and that I didn't need to spell it out.)

I think classification is a big reason for the apparent increase in autism and Asperger's syndrome. Years ago a person could just be a little weird, now its always a medical condition. And even severely autistic people might not be classified as autistic, even if they were locked away and drugged because of it.

That said, I'm not questioning that it really is increasing also. Our environment has been changing rapidly. And childhood has changed a lot.

I don't think you actually know large groups of people. Or your large groups are very homogeneous. Those symptoms are relatively uncommon in people as a whole, something you find out when you start getting out of your Engineering type groups. Most people are very much driven by emotion over logic, and simply intuitively understand and love to communicate with other people. About everything. Do you know a girl who calls her mom 5 times a day just to talk? Do you realize that she is at least as common as peop

Interestingly on a similar trajectory as selfish idiots who insist on squirting out some kids on the verge of menopause (when other things, like downs syndrome goes from a 1:1200 risk to a 1:30 or worse risk).

Anyway, it's great for people to be self-sufficient as long as they are capable of fending for themselves and not at risk of being exploited in ways the "normal" worker is not.

Troll? Really? The world for mod points. Are there a lot of late life conception slashdotters out there?

Not only are late life conception children statistically more likely to have mental "issues" of some nature, I suspect there's a correlation between late life conception and other issues such as bi-polarism and schizophrenia. Evolution favors early and successful reproduction and hasn't had time to deal with reproduction capabilities of long-lifespan organisms.

I obviously refer to the complete and deliberate act of producing a child, including conception.

So do I.

Eeeh. No, I didn't, you made that straw man up all by yourself. Neither was it a consequence of anything I said.

Yes you did. You said: "It is simply a deliberate gamble with a innocent persons life when one makes babies at 45. There are absolutely *no* excuses, in my opinion." If you say their are no excuses, then you are saying that at

If you say their are no excuses, then you are saying that at 45 a potential parent should always choose NOT creating a life, rather than creating a life that may have autism. That is valuing a life with autism as worse than no life at all.

No it isn't. It's about not taking risks with other peoples' lives for the sake of self-gratification.It has nothing to do with valuation, the ones suffering are the autists themselves and not, at least mostly not to the same degree, their surroundings.On the contrary, they can, as is the subject of the article, be very valuable to society.But just because patient H.M., for example, was extremely valuable to the medical society, we would not wish his fate upon others??

That said, there's been a troubling increase of babies born on the spectrum in recent years

All I see is a troubling increase in the number of diagnoses, combined with a troubling increase in the belief that these symptoms require medical/psychiatric attention to normalize any differences. I don't know about you, but I loathe the idea of a society of homogeneous personalities as much as I loathe the idea of an ice cream shop with homogenized flavors. Variety is the spice of life.

All I see is a troubling increase in the number of diagnoses, combined with a troubling increase in the belief that these symptoms require medical/psychiatric attention to normalize any differences. I don't know about you, but I loathe the idea of a society of homogeneous personalities as much as I loathe the idea of an ice cream shop with homogenized flavors. Variety is the spice of life.

Not all of it is the result of increased diagnosis. As in, it's unlikely the increase is due to improved detection. Read

High Functioning Autism isn't really a condition that impairs people from doing more complex work. It's really similar to Aspergers Syndrome, and people with these two conditions are the kinds of people who would can get good educations and be great programmers.

(I hear Silicon Valley has a higher prevalence of Aspies, likely because the kinds of jobs found there are a good fit for Aspies and tend to attract them to the region.)

Ever since that report came out a few years ago, it has been "trendy" to walk around proclaiming "I'm a geek and have some weird OCD traits, so I totally have aspergers!" I'm sure it is sometimes legitimate and meaningful, but for the most part I suspect it is the geek version of a guy going around telling people how edgy and brooding and complex he is. And when geeks aren't going around self-diagnosing themselves as that, I'm sure doctors are all too often eager to do it for them for the same odd reasons they go around telling everyone (or used to, at least) that they have ADD and ADHD simply because they can't sit in a chair and not twitch a muscle for fifteen hours straight.

Yes, high functioning autism people CAN be successful in the business world, but it is more of a exception rather than a rule. Not being able to communicate well or understand abstract ideas is a real problem in the business world.
It does impair them from doing complex work. Everything for an autism person MUST be concrete. I can see why this would lead to success in programming, but they would fail at many other professions.

Let's be more clear. There's high functioning Autism and there's low functioning Autism, and the difference between the two has to do with whether they can hold their own in intellectual settings, and whether they can live independantly. High Functioning Autism [about.com] and Aspies [udel.edu] have at least average intelligence, and can frequently be geniuses or experts in their fields.

High Functioning Autism isn't really a condition that impairs people from doing more complex work.

Indeed. I have done quite a bit of thinking/independent study on this issue, and I think the best way to describe the difference between an "Autistic" brain and a "Neurotypical" brain is by comparing a GPU to a CPU.

A neurotypical or 'normal' brain is incredibly parallel, much like yon super-powered GPU's. This parallelism is what allows the average person to walk, chew gum, carry on a conversation, breathe, and at the same time remember that they left the front door unlocked. Scans of autistic brains,

The writer must be a programmer because as a tester, I find the phrase "predictable, monotonous work" offending. Sure, parts of testing can be predictable and monotonous, but a good tester goes outside the box and the majority of testing is not the predictable monotonous type. If testing was predictable, then it wouldn't be needed. If it was predictable that certain bugs would be found then a good Engineer would always fix it before it was found, making it not predictable anymore.

Testing credit-card software a few years ago the test design was all done for us in the form of standard test packs that were aimed at requirement validation. The poor tester we got to do the work had about 4 days straight of:

Put card in machine. Press this button. Take card out of machine. Put it back in. Press this button to program card for next test. Take card out of machine. Goto beginning.

Yes ago we were doing a data warehousing project. This involved getting other departments to build extract feeds from their system so that we could pull all the data together. Some one had to chase down progress from all these third parties. It was no fun at at all. Spending hours hassling people who were tee'd off with you 'wasting' their time.

Dave had mild Aspergers. We got him to do the hassling as he couldn't sense the irritation of the people he was calling.

Is it stereotypical to think that someone who has the flu will likely be tired? Is it stereotypical to think that someone with lung cancer will cough? It's a disorder. It has certain symptoms. Saying that _A SPECIFIC PERSON_ with that disorder has certain symptoms of that disorder is not in any way similar to racial stereotypes. What you are saying is that asking someone who is coughing heavily and blowing their nose frequently if they are sick is no different than assuming that all Mexicans can't drive. There's a huge difference. You might as well bitch about people saying that someone with a Y chromosome is a boy. I mean that's not _always_ true either, so that must be a horrible insensitive stereotype too, huh?

Hey, you made that assumption, not me. You wouldn't pick an actual racial stereotype because you're afraid of being politically correct. I'm just pointing out that people with a particular gene is just as likely to behave differently from anybody else that shares a particular genetic difference.

I'm just having a go at all those "we're all the same" tyrants who ought to be attacking anyone who considers Down Syndrome or any other genetic difference as something politically incorrect to notice or talk about

He was using the 'Mexicans can't drive' statement as an example; not saying that you specifically hold that stereotype. And, the reason one might not use racial stereotypes as opposed to the symptoms of a genetic disorder is that the former has not undergone rigorous testing through randomized control trials. Rather historically, they've just been used to bring people down. If I say black people are more prone to sickle cell, then that statement could be validated through a literature search on the topic. Y

On the topic of Autism, I suggest everybody read "The Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon. It puts the condition into a very approachable context that allows the reader to live through the eyes of an Autistic. It also has a great science/research back story that us geeks like.

He was someone working halftime to "integrate into society", three years ago.

The project was a huge database migration, so we would give the kid excell sheets with thousands of records to compare data consistency, validating scripts and data transformations, while management smiled "that'll keep the kid busy for a few months".

Now, he loved wikipedia, and we'd only see him read franically on wikipedia... at the end of the day, he'd walk up to the IT-manager, each time again:
"I'm sorry sir, I did my best today but I could only manage to go through 70% of the list. I found some errors which I marked. Next time, I'll try harder, I don't want to dissapoint you.", while the same look of disbelief was on his face over and over again.
All the consultants that passed through the project with their programming knowledge, could not match the comparing accuracy of this kid with his massive speed, while he just seemed to be reading wikipedia, apoligizing each evening when he went on his way home in all his quirkyness being very thankful to get the "opportunity to work with pcs".

It's maybe relevant to mention the project was an agressively low priced fixed project, going over schedule so the client being hired for the project kept on dumping starters and benchers to finish the project with the problems you could imagine. It's why I was hired the period of the project to support the other consultants who were stuck in the mess they've been creating trying to get the project done.

If I would have the opportunity again to work with and rely on autistics for tasks needing massive concentration and accuracy, I'll put all my trust in their hands.

Not trying to be antagonistic here, but I have to ask. Do you think your co-worker was being paid in-line with the amount of work he was doing? My only fear with this concept is that they may be taken advantage of.

Do you think your co-worker was being paid in-line with the amount of work he was doing?

No, he wasn't under a regular contract, they also didn't know the output he'd have. When he was "hired" (allowed to sit around and have tasks handed to him to "integrate") they thought they were doing charity...

At least that was my impression, I never saw the guys paycheck, but he also wasn't there fulltime:)

I've heard the same sentiment noted by a mother of autistic child, but for a different reason. She had to teach her boy to lie. A lot. For some reason, our social norms require us to lie more/less constantly.

Well, at the very least, it's pretty clear that they didn't come out wrong, but with a very useful skill set. I have similar sentiments about ADHD: if you're in a group of cavemen going out hunting, you want someone in your group who will notice all the little things that folks who don't have ADHD ignore because that's not what they're focusing on. So if I have a task that involves looking around for anything unusual or interesting, I want someone with ADHD along, because he or she will find things I'll miss.

In fact, any "disorder" that is as common as high functioning autism or ADHD often indicates that it's not a disorder at all, but more a personality type that the rest of us have decided was annoying to deal with. For instance, autistic people are the most likely to announce that the emperor is walking around naked, which is extremely inconvenient for anyone who is selling clothing that everyone claims they can see but no one can.

A lot of you are suggesting that high function Autism is mental retardation. It ISN'T!.

I am very disgusted with the fact that people on here are totally blinkered and think its retardation. My 5 yr old son, just last week was tested for three hours and its been found that he has slight Autism. He is NOT retarded in any way shape or form. He is an exceptionally intelligent little boy. He just has trouble focusing on simple to learn tasks that are not within his interest. Case and point, at age 2 he could tell you what every single car was in the parking lot by looking at the manufacture's logo. Every one. even the odd ones that you don't see a lot of like Ferrari and Lamborghini (well you don't see many here in the white mountains of New Hampshire).
At age 3 his focus went from that to NASCAR, and he could tell you every driver, sponsor, number, what car they drove. Now he is into trains, he can watch an episode of Thomas the Tank engine and recite the whole episode word for word in order after watching it ONCE. He could read at age 3, he could write his name at age 4. He can count to 30+ and knew all his ABC's at 2 and a 1/2.

However he has problems if you break his routine, when he talks to you he will turn every conversation around to focus on what he is interested in. He has social skill problems when he deals with his peers who are of the same age. Adults not really a problem, and thats due to most adults being of a higher level than most kids his age. I personally think he has aspergers as he is very social and will will approach people and talk to them. We have has some simple tasks like one half of potty training that he still hasn't mastered at age 5, and we now know how to handle that, because all the ways we were trying were disrupting his routine.

The pediatrician came up with a very good example of how his life will be with it. If for example he decided to work at a museum as the resident Ornithologist because that is what he was interested in, he would excel at that job. He would have a perfect memory for that task and would know EVERYTHING about it. He would be a walking encyclopedia on the subject. Everything else would be secondary.

If he took up programming he would excel at it if he was interested in it. Seriously HOW IS THAT RETARDATION? Low functioning Autism is totally different end of the spectrum. Its just that all Autistic people have their brains wired differently, they are NOT retarded.

If the average functioning human mind can read emotional states of other people, can look at other people in the eye and carry on a "normal" conversation, isn't a person who can't somehow "impaired" compared to one who can? I'm not saying that they're bad or anything else like that, I'm just saying they have some specific cognitive impairments compared to an "average" person.

For instance, I knew some people with Down's syndrome in my public school system. They were th

All I'm saying is that autistic people, while having a good mind for facts and that sorts of things, have a poor mind for social interaction, which is kind of important. So I would argue that is it a kind of impairment.

But it most certainly is not mental retardation. One little data point for you: I have Asperger Syndrome, and an IQ of 148. Also, just because non-verbal communication is not intuitive to people with ASD it does not necessarily follow that we are incapable of learning it. Please remember that you are talking about real people here with real feelings, and a lot of us read slashdot. Spreading your misconceptions to people who don't know any better can create real problems for us.

Yes he can draw conclusions to it, He can compare the thing that happen in said episode to things in real life. Yes he can make new possibilities from the data he just learned. He is like I said a very bright and intelligent young boy. You leave him at his own devices on You Tube for example he will pick out and watch things that interest him.
He just has some quirky traits in his personality. He is very focused on what he is interested in. Some audio stuff like loud sirens, parades, people singing somethi

It amazes me how you can make a diagnosis of my son, from what I am typing and how I type it.. I suggest you become the Doctor of all Doctors and stop trying to diagnose people by their grammar or spelling. My grammar may not be that great, but there were no spelling errors Mr Troll.

Anyway here are the definitions of them so you can make a more objectionable diagnosis Mr Miracle Doctor. I have marked with an hash (or pound) (#) the symptoms my son has, not all of them together are needed to make an autism d

and he can run circles around most other children his age. He began learning mathematics by age two. By age five, he knows more about the solar system then many adults. He even understand, in principle, the behavior of celestial mechanics (though he doesn't understand why, he is still only five).
The reason I say this is because most autistics don't need special jobs nobody else will fill. Most of them are better than average people. They fall behind because the educational system failed them. They were not given therapy and support at a very early age. People really have no idea my son is autistic at this time. He has learned skills to adapt. But he still has his autistic strengths.
Data entry and software testing are for muggles. Autistics are meant to be software engineers, software architects, scientists, mathematicians. This company is capitalizing on the failure of society to properly develop its autistic children.

Mine taught himself to write from age 3 (using BBCs "words & pictures" series) - all we did was help him shape the characters and provide wagonloads of markers and notepads. At age 3.5 he was writing and reading so fluently that at the end of the year he and another girl at his school with similar talents were doing the reading for the nativity play. Next he discovered London Underground and learned the whole layout by heart (which I only discovered when I wondered aloud how I got from A to B and he p